State Making Progress on Voting Systems
Editorial appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader
Recently, the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause and the Verified Voting Foundation issued a joint report on election readiness that noted areas in which Kentucky's election readiness could improve.
What may not have been clear: Kentucky's elections have already improved significantly in the last few years. Secretary of State Trey Grayson has been a champion of verifiable elections in Kentucky since he took office.
As computer scientists, engineers and others have pointed out for years now, paperless electronic voting machines—the kind of equipment used in many Kentucky counties—do not provide sufficient means to audit or recount the results effectively. To help address this, Grayson has supported efforts to switch from unverifiable voting machinery to paper ballots and optical scan machines.
As a result, 34 counties have done just that—a great accomplishment and a great start. Those counties now have the tools they need to check on voting systems to ensure they are functioning as they should.
Voter-verified paper records are the best tool for checking elections, and the accuracy and reliability of voting machines. Without a physical record of the voter's choices that the voter has seen before casting a ballot, the integrity of the vote depends on the accuracy and reliability of software.
In the last five years, computer scientists recognized as leaders in their field, including the former chief security officer of Microsoft, have been emphatic in calling for voter-verifiable paper records.
The voters of Kentucky are fortunate that local election officials have heard that call, and that their state is moving in the right direction on this issue.
This type of improvement is needed for Kentucky going forward, and it is important for all counties. It will enhance the ability of the state's hard-working election officials to deal with Election Day mishaps if they should occur.
Preparing for elections is a year-round job. It includes voter outreach and education, processing thousands of voter registrations, maintaining voter registration databases, hiring and training thousands of election workers and poll workers, planning for and administering precincts and testing voting systems before they are used.
The job is an enormous one, involving everyone from the secretary of state to poll workers. Our recent report did not assess these other areas and meant no judgment on them.
But if the improvements we've seen toward verifiable voting has spilled over into these areas, then Kentucky is surely in good shape.
Larry Norden is project director for the Voting Technology Assessment project at the Brennan Center for Justice. Pam Smith is president of the Verified Voting Foundation. Richard Beliles is Kentucky state chairman of Common Cause.
